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I have the original Rothenberg bender, expander and a few other things I think. They all work great cept I find that if I don't reem out the smaller tubing sizes I will get cracks in the expanded section.

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers it can bribe the public with the public's own money.
- Alexis﻿ de Toqueville, 1835

They both work great but it is possible to over expand the pipe and split it. What I've been taught and what eliminates the possibility of splitting it is you insert the tool, give the tool a half squeeze, remove the tool, give it a quarter turn, insert and squeeze again. Because of the layout of the 6 expanding parts of the tool, by doing it this way you get a nice even expansion and no splits. I love it for bigger pipe it swages in a fraction of the time manual swaging does and it looks clean.

As mentioned earlier the hydraulic expander is awesome too. It is a little more compact for getting into tigher spaces.

Bender works great too. Recommend both those tools. I'm curious about the reverse bender fitting he showed near the end. I don't think I've seen it in action.

My only concern is the thinning of the tubing as you expand it, so I will stick to copper fittings.

You can buy the expander at Johnstones for around $280.00 out the door, or the hydraulic version for 329.00 (on flyer special), neither is cheap, so that’s a ton of expanding before you get your money back.

When I buy tools I go by level of importance, and to me it's low on the importance list for a few reasons, the biggest is I don’t see it being worth that kind of cash. Another is, I am pretty good at brazing, add in the fact that kit set me back about $400.00 for my kit plus tank deposits, so I want to use that.

The tubing benders are nice (on sale for $129.00 at Johnstones), but there is other options that are way less expensive, and again, how often are you going to break them out to make back your money?

My only concern is the thinning of the tubing as you expand it, so I will stick to copper fittings.

You can buy the expander at Johnstones for around $280.00 out the door, or the hydraulic version for 329.00 (on flyer special), neither is cheap, so thats a ton of expanding before you get your money back.

When I buy tools I go by level of importance, and to me it's low on the importance list for a few reasons, the biggest is I dont see it being worth that kind of cash. Another is, I am pretty good at brazing, add in the fact that kit set me back about $400.00 for my kit plus tank deposits, so I want to use that.

The tubing benders are nice (on sale for $129.00 at Johnstones), but there is other options that are way less expensive, and again, how often are you going to break them out to make back your money?